Retention and Recruitment Crisis

Just keep a little context - Ft Carson and the 4th ID is also the home of other great ideas - such as the organization day that used CS powder on their own troops to make sure that integrity was a foundational part of their "fun run"

The beatings will continue until morale improves.
 
I often ate at the hospital cafeteria. Usually better food and a lot less crowded. Sometimes I just packed a meal, a PB&J or something. It never really dawned on me that some folks are dependent on the DFAC for their meals. For those that are, it's despicable that there are not venues available.
 
Nobody is excited to come into the DFAC for meatloaf, corn, and mashed potatoes.
When I retired in 2009, the mess halls on post were still here, but the contracted DFACs overseas were a bit better at providing more options. Breakfast was still popular in the post mess halls, convenient after PT of course, but troops were certainly not rushing to the mess hall for lunch and dinner.
 
One of the cool things about the military as a member of the E4 mafia was having 1.5 hours to eat lunch. You had time to eat greasy food in the chow hall and then sleep off your hangover.
 
Hello clown world. :ROFLMAO: Numbers are 1.2 Billion for the sexual assault prevention and response office. 162 million for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
2025 budget: 4.5% pay raise, shift of troops from active to reserve
Other personnel initiatives include $1.2 billion for the department’s sexual assault prevention and response office, $651 million of that for implementing recommendations from a 2021 independent review commission into the military’s sexual assault problem. Much of that money will go to hiring professional educators to craft training programs.

Another $547 million would go to suicide prevention programs, including $261 million to to implement recommendations from another independent review commission. Chief of among those efforts is hiring more mental health professionals to tackle long wait times troops face when seeking counseling.

Undeterred by attacks from Republican lawmakers, the Pentagon is requesting $162 million for its diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs.

nothing is too good for the troops..........
Except if they're straight, white, male, conservative, Christian, or any combination thereof.

Also she/her at battalion wants to know if your guys finished their DEI training.
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And this.... I can't believe this.

The Royal Canadian Air Force announced earlier this month that it will retire its fleet of pilot training jets and put the program on hiatus.
Canada’s aspiring pilots will now travel to Texas, Finland and Italy to earn their wings.
So ends a proud tradition of pilot training that during the Second World War saw Canada train more than 130,000 Allied aircrew, earning it the epithet “the aerodrome of democracy” from then U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.

John Ivison: Canada's Air Force ends pilot training as Ottawa’s spending priorities grow more unbalanced
 
At the rate y'all are going, Norway or Switzerland could drive from Halifax to Vancouver and your only defenses are polar bears and the common cold.

I remain frustrated for you that your nation held the line during the Battle of the Atlantic while the US and UK got their shit together, but now you're outsourcing basic functions to other nations.
 
Coming soon to the US...

Letting a whole bunch of people in who can't meet basic standards means that a whole bunch of troops who should deploy, can't and a whole bunch more who you don't want to, because they're too dumb/weak/incompetent. Not a recipe for success.
At the same time, they ended a long standing retention policy with an effective date of the start of FY2025. It kept those experienced and senior members woth medical conditions but could still function in non deployable roles.
They are already promoting inexperienced junior NCO's into senior ranks. Most of our experienced senior NCO's and Officer's have retired early or are on their way out. We have culled most of our combat experienced members.
 
I can tell you that enlisted Soldiers in the French and German Armies really didn't make much, they often had buy their own field uniforms for deployments to Afghanistan. Body Armor was handed over during the RIP. It was wild. Officers in the French Army were compensated pretty decently, but they also don't have BAH in their pay system from what I can tell. But by the time you're a Colonel or a BG in the US you are making more by a good margin.

Europe’s soldiers keep quitting, just when NATO needs them
 
It's an Army wide notice.

It's a message outlining requirements and eligibility for retirees to reenter Active Duty for critical roles that are undermanned. Roles to be determined and posted.

It reads similar to the AF proposal for pilots to come back into the fold. Rejoin the Active Duty force in a critical role for X time and add to your retirement.

Admittedly, I breezed over the document, but it appears to be a completely voluntary recall offer for those on the retired list.


ETA: This was published yesterday, the 20th of March. https://armypubs.army.mil/ProductMaps/PubForm/Details_Printer.aspx?PUB_ID=1028611
 

Attachments

A friend of mine drove up this morning to hang out. He is a senior 18D on a 3rd Grp ODA. Over coffee I just him vent.

Morale is generally pretty low. The training budget is 1/3 of what it's supposed to be as the rest went into the Ukraine aid package. A lot of guys are not getting schools they need and they are doing the required minimum training for deployment. They are getting leadership with no combat deployments making unnecessary changes to schedules "for an OER bullet", and a lot of guys are seeing the handwriting on the wall and getting out of SF.

In this convo we talked about the dearth of medics going through SOCM and SFMS; they are running half the classes, and the classes are half full. He said that all MOSs are lacking, medics particularly so. His is the only ODA in the company with two medics, and his junior is actually going to Fox school. In 12 years he has had one deployment with a full ODA.

His team is beginning the pre-deployment training cycle, and they have made language a priority; however, where they go the natives speak neither language his team uses. So they are boning up on French and Arabic, neither used in their AOR.

He's pretty unhappy, trying to figure out whether to stay in SF, try for SMU, or get out altogether.
 
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